Image Archaeologist™

Today I wrote a new artist statement to depict my current work. The writing lead me into changing the look of my whole blog and also changing the name. I am still "a painter who blogs but my new statement will explain why I changed my blog title.

My New Artist Statement
I describe my self as an Image Archaeologist™.
My images evolve out of the surface of the canvas by carving into the wet gesso with the butt of a paintbrush. I dig into the surface to carve out the image and then brush layers of paint over the dried gesso imprint to unveil the etched surface ground. The carving is uncovered by rubbing paint into the surface grooves. Multiple layers of paint are brushed lightly over the beveled edges unearthing the image. Each layer adds an illusion of depth and is brushed and wiped away as the image unfolds. The image is found within the surface ground thus making it “image archaeology. This is my approach to the process of painting.
Today's painting is called Two Ipods. Painted last week it seemed appropriate to post as the original "Ipod" painting was a part of the "Mid Atlantic Painting Exhibition" last January at Mary Washington University. Ipod is the first in my series of images I call "earth objects".

Studio Session March 5, 2009

Todays session begins with canvas preparation. This is the raw canvas I work with. It is actually a large canvas drop cloth I purchase from the Home Depot. I cut it into quarters and then apply gesso with a plastic scraper. Applying the gesso is a lot like icing a cake.



I place blobs of gesso onto the canvas and then smooth out the gesso with the plastic scraper. After the gesso is applied I then staple my wet gessoed image onto my studio wall.

Now I carve into the gesso an imprint with the butt of my paintbrush. This imprint has organic shapes and it will become the backdrop to my earth object that is being unveiled.

Todays session shows how I mix paint to come up with the right earth tone. By mixing orange with its complimentary color purple, I get just the right tone. Mixing complimentary colors will de-intensify a color without making it muddy.

It’s called the Munsell system of color mixing. I have been using Munsell color theory in my work for over 15 years. Munsell believed that additive color, or color from pigments should be as close to what the brain perceives as possible. He scientifically proved that the opposite of red is not green but blue green. If you stare at a red piece of paper for 40 seconds and then quickly move your eye to a white piece of paper you will see blue green. The brain automatically mixes the opposite color for you.

You can do this with any pigment color. The color wheel then becomes what your brain sees in nature rather than a theory that has been manufactured. I will talk more about Munsell and color mixing in the future as Munsell is very important to the development of my work.